Creedence Clearwater Revival’s fourth album, shows a band in the full flush of success, following two albums that had spent over a year on the charts (as this one would do), and powered by two hit singles, one of which would become an anthem for its times. The album came out when Creedence, surely the most anomalouss band in the “San Francisco” explosion of the late Sixties, was also proving to be the most commercial and most reliable seller of them all.

Make no mistake, Willy & the Poor Boys is a fun record, perhaps the breeziest album CCR ever made. Apart from the eerie minor-key closer “Effigy” (one of John Fogerty’s most haunting numbers), there is little of the doom that colored Green River. Fogerty’s rage remains, blazing to the forefront on “Fortunate Son,” a working-class protest song that cuts harder than any of the explicit Vietnam protest songs of the era, which is one of the reasons that it hasn’t aged where its peers have. Also, there’s that unbridled vocal from Fogerty and the ferocious playing on CCR, which both sound fresh as they did upon release. “Fortunate Son” is one of the greatest, hardest rock & rollers ever cut, so it might seem to be out of step with an album that is pretty laid-back and friendly, but there’s that elemental joy that by late ’69 was one of CCR’s main trademarks. That joy runs throughout the album, from the gleeful single “Down on the Corner” and the lazy jugband blues of “Poorboy Shuffle” through the great slow blues jam “Feelin’ Blue” to the great rockabilly spiritual “Don’t Look Now,” one of Fogerty’s overlooked gems. The covers don’t feel like throwaways, either, since both “Cotton Fields” and “The Midnight Special” have been overhauled to feel like genuine CCR songs. It all adds up to one of the greatest pure rock & roll records ever cut.

Tracklist:
01. Down On The Corner
02. It Came Out Of The Sky
03. Cotton Fields
04. Poorboy Shuffle
05. Feelin’ Blue
06. Fortunate Son
07. Don’t Look Now (It Ain’t You Or Me)
08. The Midnight Special
09. Side O’ The Road
10. Effigy